Lowery joins coal plant opposition

Thursday

Aug 27, 2009 at 6:00 AM

ATLANTA --- A prominent civil rights leader joined with a coalition of environmental groups in filing an appeal Wednesday seeking to block a $2 billion plan to build Georgia's first new coal-fired power plant in more than two decades.

The Rev. Joseph Lowery's Georgia Coalition for the People's Agenda, along with several environmental groups, filed briefs with the Georgia Supreme Court seeking to derail the Longleaf Energy Plant in southwest Georgia.

It's no surprise that green groups, ranging from the Georgia Wildlife Federation to the National Parks Conservation Association, are involved in the legal battle. But it's more unusual for a civil rights group to wade into a fight involving pollution.

The Rev. Lowery said he was worried that minorities in Early County, the southwest Georgia county where the plant would be built, would be disproportionately affected by the coal plant pollution.

"It's a very critical problem," said the Rev. Lowery, an icon of the 1960s civil rights movement who received the Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama this month. "And it seems to me that for one reason or another, these projects always find their way into poor communities. We want answers to that as well."

LS Power, the plant's developer, disputed the Rev. Lowery's assertion. A company official said the site was chosen because of the community's access to necessities such as high-voltage lines, water and ample land.

"Those were the reasons, along with support of the community," said Mike Vogt, Longleaf's project manager. "A large, large majority of the community support the project."

The plant is expected to create at least 100 full-time jobs and generate millions of dollars in tax revenues for the rural county, where almost a quarter of the 12,000 residents live in poverty. It would power more than a half-million homes through utilities in Georgia, Alabama and Florida.

It would also emit as much as 9 million tons of carbon dioxide into the air each year, worrying critics who say it could cause health problems in a county that already suffers above-average air pollution.

GreenLaw, the Sierra Club and other environmental groups sought to block the plant and others like it because of the April 2007 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that found greenhouse gases were air pollutants.

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